Why “What Makes a Good Mobile App?” Is Only Half The Question

The right apps significantly move the needle for an organization by solving the right problems. They generate large revenue growth or cost savings opportunities. They do this through a delightful user experience that empower users and transforms the way they work.

Enterprise Innovation (EI) recently published “What makes a good mobile app?” which walks through the difference between good and bad apps. They did a great job covering what needs to be done to deliver a successful app to the user from a user experience and process improvement perspective. There is a big risk in assuming that’s enough for successful apps.

“A good app not only addresses what people look for, it also solves a pain point.” – Enterprise Innovation

It’s implied in EI’s article but we need to call out specifically that there are many pain points in an organization and we have to focus on the right ones. The most important pain points are the ones soaking up resources, taking lots of labor or calendar time or have hard costs. Solving these problems has a meaningful impact on the organization. It’s very easy to get caught in the trap of seeing a problem and jump into fixing it.

EI didn’t mention the process for selecting which apps to focus on, and that’s the big trap for the unwary. This is exactly how most companies are getting themselves in trouble. It’s why a majority of apps are not driving results for their organizations. Businesses are full of pain points and apps today are hitting the obvious, low impact problems. We have to understand what the business impact of the problem really is and quantify why it is worth solving. Otherwise we are making big investments in useless (but possibly ‘good’) apps.

A Majority of Companies Are Failing with Mobile

I recently surveyed 100 executives and only 44% of them were breaking even with their mobile programs, even though they viewed mobile as important and were trying to solve problems with it. They are solving the wrong problems and flushing money away.

Apps aren’t about a 2% process speed up. They transform the way people work or engage with the company. The right apps are driving process improvements of 50-90% in key workflows and generating millions or billions of dollars for their organizations.

Picking the right apps is hard. It requires the work to understand overall business goals, which processes to focus on and what issues or inefficiencies are important. After knowing all that you can dig into app concepts but that’s not the end. App brainstorming needs to be followed with financial modeling and rigorous prioritization to make sure the right apps are at the top of the list.

This is exactly the reason I wrote my enterprise app strategy book, Billion Dollar Apps — to help everyone succeed with picking their right apps for the right reasons. I have condensed that process into an educational program called the App Roadmap Workshop (approadmap.com) to help teach this process and empower organizations to find their right apps.

Don’t let yourself be distracted by the wrong problems. Make sure you’re working on the right apps to really drive results.